Fun and Games With History’s Kings, Queens, and Emperors

Leo Burnett advertising agency’s 2014, superbly produced Crunchy Nut film-scenario, brought to entertaining life by celebrated filmmaker and director Daniel Kleinman, is a classic Kellogg’s spoof of Henry VIII.

Tudor King Henry VIII of England, is infamous for having eight wives and dozens of mistresses, but besides his love of women, his other great passion was hunting.

An early leg injury he received in a jousting competition, plagued him throughout his adult life, and the loss of mobility this caused him, made him change the hunting code of that time.

Instead of riding after a deer, he had a deer brought to him. His courtiers then handed crossbows to him to achieve a ‘clean kill’ that required considerable concentration for effective accuracy and absolute silence, unless of course, he was distracted by a ‘Crunchy Nut’ attendant.

Lovers of England’s Monarchial History will probably enduringly view the commercial, with the broadest of all smiles. 

BETC advertising agency’s CANAL+ ‘March of The Emperors’ commercial, for France’s premium Pay-TV channel, directed by the Glue Society’s Australian filmmakers duo of Gary Freedman and Jonathan Kneebone, is a viewing delight. 

The masterly produced, 2006 Cannes Festival of Creativity Titanium film-scenario, about ‘messages of unintended meaning’, humorously conveys the selling proposition that movies are best seen and not heard.

Footnote on Message and Meaning

To me there is no greater example of the ‘message and meaning’ dynamics in verbal communication than BETC advertising agency’s CANAL+, ‘The March of The Emperors’ commercial.

For a sender’s ‘external’ message, to be interpreted ‘internally’ for meaning by the receiver, without ambiguity or visually imagined misperception, requires vital creative forethought and audience insight.

McKinney advertising agency’s amusing, 2014 Mentos Long Lasting Gum parody, featuring King Richard III of England, also known as ‘Richard the Lion-heart’, due to his reputation of being a great military leader and warrior, is a humorous, masterly directed portrayal by English filmmaker and television director Steve Bendelack, with great performances from his cast.

Filmed on location at a 12th-century castle in southern France, made to look like an ancient English battlefield, Neeraj Singh’s impressive attention given to historically accurate costume details, are particularly noteworthy.

BETC advertising agency’s 2008 ‘Versailles’ commercial, for France’s premium Pay-TV channel CANAL+, is an advertising gem, that decades later, still sparkles brightly for me.

Superbly directed by maestro filmmaker Xavier Giannoli, the sterlingly enacted vignette of Queen of France, Marie Antoinett, at the Palace of Versailles, plays out to the ingeniously inspired humour of the commercial’s ‘huffing-and-puffing’ dialogue, effectively delivering CANAL Plus’ selling proposition with ‘broad-smile’ brand affinity.

Directed by celebrated filmmaker Tarsem Singh, and filmed on a set of the Coliseum, near the genuine Rome Coliseum landmark of historic fame and notoriety, PepsiCo’s parody commercial, starring Enrique Iglesias as Roman Emperor Titus, and Britney Spears, Pink, and Beyoncé, as spectacular, foot-stomping ‘Pepsi Gladiators’, who turn Queen’s, Grammy Hall of Fame song,“We Will Rock You” into an anthem of girl-power.

The impressively produced Pepsi Gladiators commercial was in introduced globally in London on 26th January 2004, at an exclusive premier held at the National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, and not, as so often erroneously reported, at the 2004 Super Bowl in Houston, Texas, USA.

Footnote

Rock Band Queen’s Guitarist and songwriter Brian May, and drummer and backing vocalist Roger Taylor, can be spotted in cameo crowd scenes appearances.

Masterly directed by celebrated filmmaker Lance Acord, Tierney advertising agency’s highly amusing and hugely popular 2008, NFL Super Bowl commercial, promoting Garmin’s personal navigation Nüvi GPS portable, features a vintage Panard automobile, mysteriously racing through Paris, and arriving at the ‘Parc de Saint-Cloud’, to an astonishing surprise of 19th-century soldiers on horseback waiting to do battle.